Wednesday

CHESTERFIELD — Meadowdale Library is showcasing several works of art this month by prominent African American artists in an exhibit to celebrate the diversity of African American art.

The exhibit features high quality photographic reproductions of the original work hanging in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. The 11 pieces selected for the exhibit span almost 200 years in honor of Black History Month.

The title of the exhibit, “A New Mosaic,” represents the vast subject matter, style, media and themes used in African American art.

“I think that sometimes African American artists can get typecast or stereotyped into producing one type of art,” said Karen Getty, docent and tour services coordinator at the VMFA. “It’s really to celebrate the diversity among African American artists.”

From traditional landscaping paintings and furniture making, to contemporary abstract painting, the exhibit includes pieces from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, representing several historical and artistic time periods in African American history.

Thomas Day’s “Center Table” is one of the works featured in the exhibit. Day, a native of Dinwiddie County, was a free black in the mid 1800s who became a renown master craftsman.

Day was a successful entrepreneur, owning his own furniture-making business, which was significant at the time for an African American.

“At that time as an African American that was no simple feat,” Getty said. “(Art) was long time reserved for the elite.”

Another piece featured in the exhibit is Beauford Delaney’s Harlem Renaissance-inspired painting “Greene Street” from 1946. “Greene Street” is a colorful streetscape that shows daily life in New York City. The work was painted a decade after the Harlem Renaissance, however Delaney uses the same style as the artistic, social and cultural African American movement of the 1920s and 1930s.

During this time, black artists used their talents as proof of equality.

“Art was being used as a vehicle for social equality,” Getty said. “A lot of African Americans were saying we can prove we’re equal because we can make art just as good as our white counterparts.”

Kehinde Wiley’s 2006 “Willem Van Heythuysen” makes a powerful statement by placing a black male wearing Timberland boots and street attire in the pose often depicted in European “Old Master” paintings from the Renaissance of the Middle Ages, as well as the Baroque and Romantic periods; a traditional pose for painters that people of color were not painted as.

The rest of the artwork at the exhibit includes Julie Mehretu’s 2004 abstract painting “Stadia III,” Iona Rozeal Brown’s “a3 blackface” — which is based on the Japanese ganguro movement in the 1990s — Charles White’s “Guitarist” charcoal drawing, a sculpture by Virginia artist Leslie Bolling and Robert S. Duncanson’s “The Quarry” landscape from the 1850s.

“We’re very happy to have (the exhibition),” said John Miers, assistant branch manager at Meadowdale Library. “We’re fortunate to have a relationship with the VMFA.”

The exhibit will be on display until Feb. 29. The library is located at 4301 Meadowdale Boulevard.

Shelby Mertens may be reached at 804-722-5154 or smertens@progress-index.com

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.

Submit Content

Market Place

Social Media

Original content available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license, except where noted.
The Progress-Index ~ 15 Franklin Street, Petersburg, VA 23803 ~ Privacy Policy ~ Terms Of Service